


Defenders of New Prospit

by seer_of_void (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, M/M, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2012-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:51:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/seer_of_void
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is John Egbert and you are COMPLETELY NORMAL in every way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Episode 01

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, here goes nothing! Characters and ships will be added as they are introduced.

Your name is John Egbert and you are COMPLETELY NORMAL in every way. You are currently heading to your next class at NEW PROSPIT UNIVERSITY, your college for the past three years. You are a BIOLOGY MAJOR and you are presently repeating sophomore year, due to your tendency to MISS CLASS.

You are a normal guy with normal-guy interests. You like BAD MOVIES, you dabble in AMATEUR MAGIC and COMPUTER PROGRAMMING, and all of your attempts to grow a BADASS MOUSTACHE have failed miserably.

There is a STRANGE BOY in your film class.

You're not sure quite why, but there’s something about him that really interests you! Maybe it’s the shabby-chic clothes he wears, plaid shirts and ripped jeans and t-shirts with esoteric sayings on them, only from the highest-end thrift stores. Maybe it’s those ludicrous overlarge HIPSTER SHADES he's got on that he says are IRONIC but are probably just there 'cause he likes them, or 'cause he doesn't like making eye contact. Maybe it’s the fact that he wrote his dissertation on the history of MUPPETS, and part of his presentation was done in FREESTYLE RAP. Maybe it's because he's so quiet, but whenever he says something, it's some insightful quip that makes you double over in silent laughter. Maybe it’s one of those things.

He always sits in the back of class, earbuds in and tapping incessantly on his iPhone. You’d think he’d fail, but he always manages to pull through, with high marks no less. He’s neat. You want to hang out with him.

You catch up to him as you both leave class.

“Hey, um, Dave, right?” You fall in step beside him. He gives you a sidelong glance, then pushes his shades higher on the bridge of his nose and looks away.

“Maybe,” he says, shoulders raised.

“Woah! Sound the alarm, we’ve got an asshole on deck!” you say, raising your hands in mock surprise. “Kidding! I wanted to ask you about the Streetcar paper, ‘cause I missed that lesson. You seem to have your shit together and I, well, don’t.”

“What're you suggesting?”

“I was thinking we could maybe do coffee sometime.”

“Subtle, dude,” he says, and you swear you see a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. It's gone in an instant.

“...What?”

“I’m pretty much always busy,” he continues.

“Well, yeah, I mean so am I, aren’t we all, but I manage somehow.”

“Oh, huh, would you look at that,” he says, glancing at the watch on his wrist. “My allotted time for dealing with buck-toothed dorks today _just_ ran out.”

“Hey!” you protest. It’s not _your_ fault you never managed to get braces to fix your overbite! “Just... hang on juuuust a sec, okay?" Tearing open your backpack, you dig through the detritus to find a pad of paper and a pen. Balancing it precariously between your knee and chest as you stumble to keep pace with him, you scrawl a message in your messy handwriting. “In case you change your mind, here’s my cell and chumhandle. You can, uh, text me if— oh!”

Your phone goes off. It’s not your usual ringtone.

“...Shit!” You thrust the paper at his chest. “I’ve extra-super-gotta-go, bye!!” Slinging your open backpack over your shoulder, you dash towards the nearest building. Dave watches you through his hipster shades.

Ducking inside the nearest empty classroom, you pull out your phone and read the message there. You pocket it again with a sigh. Guess you won’t be getting to your next class any time soon.

You open the door and scan the hallway for the nearest janitor’s closet. This isn’t one of the buildings you’re assigned to clean, but you’re pretty sure you’ve got something here. It pays to work as a janitor sometimes. Unlocking the door, you use your phone as a flashlight and nudge the trolley and mops out of the way. You shut the closet behind you and poke around in the corners until you find what you’re looking for: a nondescript cloth bundle hidden in the back corner. Making sure the door behind you is locked, you empty it on the floor.

Clothes spill out, a colorful (but coordinated!) mess of blue, yellow, and white. You waste no time. Stripping down to your underwear, you pull on the tights and the shorts (skintight, unfortunately, but serviceable and also kind of necessary). Yellow boots follow, then the top and matching yellow gloves. You’re getting pretty good at this changing thing by now.

Second-to-last is the scarf, which drags on the floor but is otherwise basically the coolest. The last thing you do is remove your glasses, tying on a blue mask with polarized lenses in its place.

You crack open the door, make sure no one is in the hallway, then burst through. The breeze gathers under your fingertips as you run towards the door, which blows open in front of you. Wind beneath your feet, you soar up into the open sky. Your scarf whips dramatically behind you in a way that you think is totally awesome.

Your name is BLUE STREAK, and you are New Prospit City’s resident SUPERHERO.

~~~

Kicking your legs, you sail up over the buildings of your campus, towards the looming skyscrapers downtown. The trees whip and toss underneath you. You turn backwards and wave at the tiny specks of people down below. Some are pointing and waving (you’re kind of a thing!!), others hold onto their hats in the stiff breeze. God, you love showing off. But there’s no time to waste! Your phone, strapped to your utility belt, beeps impatiently. There are civilians to be rescued!

Locating the intersection of 3rd and Hill street, where your phone said to go, you land on an overhanging building and survey the scene. A crowd has already gathered, and so too have some cop cars. You always find that a little disappointing; you like to get there first! Oh well.

You decide not to make your dramatic entrance just yet. Peeking around an air conditioning unit, you squint at the people gathered below, trying to figure out who the baddies are. You’re also brainstorming one-liners, because if it’s one of your regular villains, you damn well better have some witty banter prepared. You don’t know if you’ll be able to top last week’s “ _thwarting your plans is a breeze_ ,” but you’ll try. Rapport is half the battle!

Unfortunately, a lack of colorful costumes and evil cackling indicates that this is just a common criminal, which is decidedly less fun and a lot more dangerous. But as a hero of justice, you are sworn to protect the people! Evildoers will get their comeuppance, no matter what! Good will always triumph, and all that. You’re ready to fight somebody.

The crowd seems to be centered around a short, stocky man in a black suit with a sinister air about him. He’s gripping a minigun in one hand, and the other hovers near the plunger of some sort of fuse. He’s yelling something at the police and threatening the crowd of innocents with the gun. You can’t hear what he’s saying, but with a twitch of a finger, the breeze carries his words to you:

“...And if you don’t let him go, I’ll shoot everyone in this here crowd! Don’t think I won’t!”

“Sir, if you would please put the gun down and comply, the police have you surrounded.”

“Ah, but all I have to do is push this little thingamabob down, and... boom!” He gestures to the office building behind him. “Explodey time! So what’ll it be! I just want my buddy-ol’-pal outta prison, is that too much to ask?”

“Mr. Clubs Deuce, you are under arrest for—” But you don’t hear the rest, because you spring into action. The wind whips around Deuce like a giant arm, wrenching the gun from his grasp and sending him tumbling head-over-heels into a brick wall. The crowd cheers as you soar down. For good measure, you give the gun a good kick with your heel, sending it skidding towards the nearest policeman, who promptly picks it up and disarms it.

“You chose the wrong day to try and take New Prospit Citizens hostage, Deuce,” you say in your most victorious voice, “for wherever the wind blows, Blue Streak will—”

A scream from the crowd cuts you short, and you spin around to see Deuce, who you thought was out cold, lunging for the fusebox. You watch in horrified slow motion as he reaches for the lever. Then you realize that what you’re watching is in _real time_ and that he's _actually falling in slow motion_ , his hand inching towards the plunger bit by bit.

The air shimmers beside him and a figure appears, grabs the box, and moves it aside out of his reach. Police surround the time-trapped criminal and handcuff him as soon as he hits the ground and snaps back into real time. The crowd cheers again, but you’re not so happy. You’d know that damn domed futuristic helmet anywhere.

 _Timeslicer_. That guy is seriously starting to cramp your style.

“Hey, I had this under control!”

“Really, Bluey?” he says in that robotic-sounding disguised voice of his. “Because it looked like he was about to blow this popsicle stand to splinters.”

“That’s just how it _looked_ ,” you whine. He’s right, though, loath as you are to admit it if he hadn’t shown up just then, you’d have been royally fucked.

“Thank you very much, boys,” the chief of police says, appearing behind you and clapping you both on the shoulder. Well, really just you on the shoulder, because Timeslicer flashstepped out of the way at the last second, jumpy asshole. “All of these people owe their lives to you. New Prospit is again in your debt. Is there anything, anything at all, we can do to repay—”

“Nope!” You say. “Fighting crime is its own rewa—”

“Information,” says Timeslicer. “I need information on a certain man, if you’ve got it.”

“Well, I, I don’t know if that’s under my jurisdiction to say, but for what it’s worth, I can give you a ride back to the station, and we’ll see what we can do. We owe that much to you, anyway.”

“Make it quick,” he says. “I’m on a tight schedule.”

“Hey, I thought you had all the time in the world?” you say with a laugh. He glares at you. Maybe. You can’t see his face at all through the helmet, just the weird triangular logo thing that looks like dumb sunglasses from an anime you saw once. But you’re pretty sure he’s glaring.

After ensuring Clubs Deuce is safely handcuffed, stuffed in the back of a secure police car, and shipped off to New Prospit Jail (population: growing!), you kick up a whirlwind and flew back up into the sky again. Since you’ve already missed your next class, and there’s no use showing up halfway through because you know the professor will just yell at you, you instead take the chance to fly over the city, dodging between spires and skyscrapers and telephone lines. This never gets old. Sometimes, you like to pretend that all the honking horns and flashing lights are personal beacons to you. Everybody saying, _hi there, Blue Streak! You’re my hero!_

Which of course you are. You are pretty much the best hero, _plus_ you were here first.

Timeslicer can go suck it.


	2. Episode 02

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episode 02: attack of the space dogs from outer space!!! A dastardly criminal in a robot suit wreaks havoc on New Prospit City! Does Blue Streak have what it takes to defeat her? Meanwhile, John's got a coffee not-date with Dave, the kid from his film class! How will it go?

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] \--

TG: so i dont really know why im actually following through with this  
TG: but here we are   
EB: because you were so thoroughly taken by my force of charisma?   
TG: yeah  
TG: charmed my pants right off  
TG: whoops whered they go   
EB: heh!  
EB: so how about that coffee?   
TG: well  
TG: not now  
TG: im planning an allnighter  
TG: gonna cut off all communication with the outside world and get a shitton of homework done  
TG: itll be a real life immersive simulation of the dark ages   
EB: okay, but aren’t you slacking off right now?   
TG: no i just havent started yet   
EB: riiiiiiiight.  
EB: suuuuuuuure you haven’t.  
EB: i think i’ll leave you to your slacking then.   
TG: tomorrow   
EB: tomorrow?   
TG: tomorrow at 10   
EB: oh, awesome!  
EB: i’ll see you there then.  
EB: thanks, dave!   
TG: np  
TG: k later

\--   
turntechGodhead [TG]  ceased pestering  ectoBiologist [EB] \--

 

He logs off and you minimize the chat window, feeling very satisfied with yourself. Just as you’re about to turn off your computer and actually get your work done for real this time, someone else interrupts you.

\-- arachnidsGrip [AG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] \--

AG: Joooooooohn!!!!!!!!   
EB: vriiiiiiiiskaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!   
AG: Oh wow that is way more 8s than me, I’ve 8een 8eaten.  
AG: How aaaaaaaare you, John?   
EB: busy!   
AG: Thwart any evil plans lately?   
EB: wow, no chit-chat first, huh? cutting straight to that. okay.   
AG: That’s 8ecause your powers are the coolest! And so it is important to keep me, your most excellent esteemed advisor, 8riefed on everything.   
EB: well, yeah, they are all kinds of awesome.  
EB: and actually, i did take a bad guy out today!  
EB: he was holding a crowd hostage and threatening to blow up a building.   
AG: ::::O   
EB: but instead, i blew him up!  
EB: you know, blew, with the wind.   
AG: Yes, John, I know.  
AG: Good jo8! You are the 8est hero.   
EB: yeah, but...   
AG: No 8uts!!!!!!!!   
EB: no, i mean, timeslicer showed up again.   
AG: Man, f8ck that guy.   
EB: yeah. totally.  
EB: him and his dumb swords and his stupid tron helmet and his cool time powers...   
AG: Sounds to me like you’re waxing 8lack for him!   
EB: what?   
AG: Nothing.   
EB: man, vriska, sometimes you say these weird things and i have no idea what you’re talking about, and when i ask about them, you pretend you didn’t say anything.  
EB: but that’s ok, because other than that, you are the best advisor ever.   
AG: :::;D  
AG: So what else is new????????   
EB: well...  
EB: i’m going to starbucks with this guy in my film class tomorrow morning!   
AG: Ooooooooh! Like as a d8?   
EB: no!  
EB: well, i mean...   
AG: Ha! Knew 8.   
EB: it’s not really like that though! we’re just sharing notes on a class i missed.  
EB: but i guess he’s kind of a funny guy and i want to be friends with him.   
AG: If you ever need any advice........ :::;)   
EB: you better not be suggesting what i think you are!   
AG: May8e I am! ;;;;)   
EB: oh no! FOUR winks! my god!  
EB: how do i live without you.   
AG: ....Oh!  
AG: Kanaya wants to know how you’re liking the costume.   
EB: tell kanaya that the costume is amazing and that she is the best!  
EB: sorry, 8est!   
AG: Gr8!  
AG: She’ll be soooooooo psyched to hear that.   
EB: listen, i hate to cut and run so quickly, but i have a shitton of homework and then i have to work the night shift.  
EB: and then i have to get *some* sleep so that i don’t look like a total zombie when i meet dave for coffee in the morning!  
EB: so i’ll talk to you later?   
AG: Haha, sure!  
AG: <>   
EB: vriska, you’re doing that thing again...   
AG: Just return 8t!!!!!!!!   
EB: sigh. fine.  
EB: <>

\--  ectoBiologist [EB]  ceased pestering  arachnidsGrip [AG]  \--

The day dawns bright and clear. Sparrows chirp incessantly and the morning sunlight pierces through the open curtains of your dorm window. Your phone buzzes in your pocket and you jump, shrugging off the comforter and reaching for it instinctively. Rubbing sleep crystals out of your eyes, you let your gaze fall on the nightstand. The digital numbers unapologetically tell you that it’s currently 9:30. You jolt awake and have to catch yourself to keep from falling out of bed. Shit!! You slept through your alarm again.

You check your phone, finding out with relief that it’s not a crime alert, just a notification that Keanu Reeves tweeted something. It’s probably hilarious and/or uplifting (Keanu’s your man), but you don’t have time for that right now! You shuffle out of your cargo pants (you have _got_ to stop falling asleep in your work clothes, goddamnit) and pull on some jeans. You check your reflection in the cracked mirror and rub a hand over your patchy stubble. You look like a starving college student. Okay.

At 9:50, you’re dashing across the quad, backpack hanging off of one shoulder. Getting there before he does is suddenly REALLY IMPORTANT, but you can’t articulate why. You arrive at the strip of student stores and lean against the brick wall for a few seconds to catch your breath. You run a hand through your hair a few times (to no avail), check your reflection in your phone (why does it matter??!), and enter the Starbucks.

One glimpse of a blonde-haired head with shades and your heart sinks. He got there first.

He sees you as soon as you see him, seated at a two-person table facing the door. You smile and wave, and he grants you a tiny nod of acknowledgment. Spontaneous burst of energy failing you, you need CAFFEINE, stat. You order your usual (venti coffee with a shot, extra cream and sugar; the barista knows you). Carrying it to his table, you take a seat across from him.

“Sup,” he says.

“You’re here early!”

“So’re you.”

“Well, yeah!” You sip your drink. “How’d the all-nighter go?”

“What’dyou expect? Fell asleep halfway through. Roomie came home smashed at 3am, woke me up. Managed to get the rest done.” He talks in rapidfire with a bit of a southern twang. Texas? Who knows.

“You don’t _look_ tired,” you say, although with the shades it’s hard to tell.

“What can I say? I’m a fucking superhuman when it comes to sleep.” Damn. You hope he didn’t pick up on the involuntary twitch you gave at “superhuman.” You have _got_ to stop doing that! You’re blowing this secret identity thing to bits.

“...So how about you?” Dave asks, jolting you from your worry.

“Oh, uh, I was at work until late.”

“Work?”

“Janitor,” you say. “I work for the school, and they pay me back by making me not homeless.”

“So you’re basically NPU’s bitch.”

“Basically,” you say with a sigh. “It’s a nice job though. You get _everywhere_. I know pretty much every nook and cranny and secret tunnel on campus. You wanna get on the roof? That can be arranged.” As you talk, you feel a weird itch. Dave is staring at you surreptitiously from behind his glasses, studying you like a math problem. You trail off into silence and meet his eyes. He holds your gaze for a prolonged second. Your insides feel all weird.

“What is it, dude?” you ask.

“Nothing.” He looks away. “...You reminded me of someone for a sec.”

“Oh. Huh. Okay!” You decide it’s not worth pursuing. The probability that he’s connected starving-college-student John Egbert with tights-and-mask-superhero Blue Streak is slim to nil; you don’t see many people up close when you’re heroing. “...So. Streetcar, right?”

“Bitches be desirin’ left right and center,” he says, reaching for a notebook out of his back. “So what d’you want to know?”

“I _have_ seen it already, so I’m looking for examples of symbolic foreshadowing.  I don’t even know where to start. Did the professor point any out in particular?”

“Hell yeah she did. This shit’s almost as phallic as Veggie Tales.”

“...Veggie Tales?”

“Yeah, definitely. All those dancing and singing carrots and cucumbers--”

“Oh my god, _stop_ before you ruin all my precious childhood memories,” you say, burying your face in your hands. He might be laughing quietly to himself, the way he tucks his head down while his shoulders quake.  He is, you decide, a very weird kid.

By the end of the not-d8 you learn more about him. You learn that he’s the same age as you but took a gap year before college, so you’re in the same class. He’s an econ major with a music minor, which is just about the weirdest combination of classes you can imagine but he claims that it’s exactly what he’s good at. Like you, he's taking Film 101 for the hell of it. You discuss sports (you're a pretty big fan of the Knights, your football team, and you thought he was too until he asks you about the quarterback's BPA), music (he scoffs when you admit you listen to showtunes and Taylor Swift and promises to introduce you to some _real_ music later), and movies. You don't care what he says; you are taking him to see Drive Angry and there is absolutely nothing he can do about it.

"—And Princess Celestia's like, 'okay, Twilight, this was really all just a setup to get you out of my basement, but it's nice that you discovered the magic of friendship and saved Equestria from eternal night  I guess.' You're sure you've never seen MLP?"

"Positive," you say, "but I guess I'll check it out."

"Jegus, Egbert, you are in need of some serious culture jamming."

"...'Jegus?'"

"Oh, that's, uh," he says, dropping his gaze to the table. "it's a reference to a webcomic."

"Do you usually make references that no one gets?"

"All the time. Listen, Egbert, and I'll clue you in to one of Dave Strider's top secret methods of coolness: never let anybody understand you, ever." He pops and unpops his collar. You cover your mouth to hide your laughter.

You glance at the clock for the first time in a while, and you jump. Holy shit, It's past noon! As much as spending time with Dave is quickly becoming your second favorite pastime, you've got other plans, including your number one favorite pastime. Your precious free time is slipping away between your fingers!

Dave follows your gaze. "Outta time?"

"Yeah," you say with a sigh. "Hey. This was great, though. I'll pester you later, 'kay?"

"Sure. See you around, Eggs."

As you get up to leave, you feel his eyes on you, studying you again.

The fresh noonday breeze wraps around you in a welcoming hug as you stroll out onto the quad. You mull over your options: you could work on that essay for film, or get some advance work out of the way for some of your other courses. You could program—that's always interesting, you haven't boned up on data structures in a while. You could watch those children's cartoons that Dave recommended, or you could simply catch up on some well-deserved sleep.

Your Crime Alert goes off.

Yeah, who are you kidding?

~~~

You circle in the air above New Prospit City. You're high enough in the sky that ice crystals form on your face and clothes, and your hair dampens and sticks to your scalp. It's chilly as fuck, so you tug a warm breeze up from below and wrap it around yourself like a blanket.

This particular Crime Alert was different from the last: it didn't specify any particular location, and was frustratingly vague about the details. These kinds of alarms tend to indicate a jailbreak or supervillainous acivity, or both. All that's left to do is to keep watch and wait for explosions.

...Like that one.

You plummet towards the source of the smoke plume, mutting to yourself about how predictable villains are these days. When you hear the screams of helpless innocents, you know you've got the right place.

The crime scene is a public park. You used to go here as a kid sometimes; you would spend hours playing on those monkey bars which now appear to be a twisted heap of scrap metal. Several trees are on fire, crowds are fleeing everywhere, police sirens are wailing in the distance, and a thick cloud of dust and smoke hangs over everything. You take a deep breath and blow it all away. As it clears, a tall shape  emerges.

You find yourself staring at a pair of clawed metal feet, almost as tall as you are. You squint up at the rest of the structure: a robotic exoskeleton, crisscrossed with wires, with a glowing green power source embedded in its chest. Within the suit is the small figure of a girl. Her face is obscured with mismatched glass lenses, but with her black flowing hair and atom symbol emblazoned across her torso, there's no mistaking her.

"Radiatia," you hiss.

"Blue Streak! So we meet again!" She bends down to look at you. The head of the suit is canine, and its metal teeth frame her face. She flexes her claws and swishes her tail. You know her, obviously.

"I thought I put you away where you belong," you say, taking a step backwards and gathering the wind in your hands.

She lets out a barking laugh. The speakers in the ears of her suit amplify her voice. "Yes! I should thank you. It turns out there's plenty of materials to rebuild my robosuit. They should already know that their flimsy walls cannot hold back science!"

"Oh, please," you say, taking to the air. "Like anything that you do is real science! You don't even follow the scientific method!"

"Shut up!!" The metal plates on her right arm draw back and reconfigure themselves into the form of a ray gun, which hums to life. You barely have time to dive out of the way as she fires a searing-hot blast of energy that almost singes your awesome scarf. It strikes and topples a lamppost instead, instantly liquefying the metal.

"And now," she continues, voice booming across the ruined park, "everyone else you unjustly locked up will be free, too! How about _that_ , Blue Suck?"

"That's not even a good insult! And how much of an idiot do you—I mean, don't you realize that these people were locked away because they were crazy criminals and a threat to society?"

"Umm yeah! Villain over here, duhhh," she says, waving a paw to indicate herself as she primes another shot. It is then that you notice she's straddling the rubble of a tunnel just large enough to accommodate her suit, if compacted. You're willing to bet that that's how she managed to break free. If what she says is true—and it might not be, this is a _villain_ you're dealing with here—there's bound to be more criminals using the same escape route unless you do something about it quickly.

You dance out of the way of another energy blast, and use your hands to braid the breeze into an invisible whip. You swing it low, picking up dust and debris from the ground, and make sure it'll sting before lashing it out at her. To your disappointment, she sees it coming before it hits and raises her arms to cover her face, the plates of her armor shifting to deflect the flying pebbles and sticks.

Crap. You doubt a wind-punch would do much good, either—the technique that you'd used to take down Clubs Deuce the other day generally only worked on people who didn't weigh as much as a small truck.

...Small truck... that gives you an idea! But you'll have to get her off of that hole, first.

"Hey, Radiatia!" You fly backwards and use the air to amplify your voice so it fills the clearing. "Ever wonder why I got these powers?"

"Um," she pauses in her next shot. "I've always—genetic anomaly? Are you using some sort of technology? What—"

"Then you'll have to catch me to find out!" You laugh, spinning gleefully away. Yes, that's it, take advantage of her curiosity, any scientist wouldn't deny a good riddle—

"—Or, I could just kill you and examine your dead body to find out," she says, standing her ground and priming another energy blast. Another lens descends from the head of the suit over her eyes, presumably to help her lock on to your moving target.

Crap.

As a last-dash effort, you dive towards her. You feel the heat radiating from your gun as you sail past it, ducking in between her metal legs (and her real legs, perched atop stilts within the suit) to grab hold of her swinging metal tail and hold on for dear life. She turns, confused, unable to see you due to the suit's limitations on her movement. You're not sure she can even feel you hanging there as you tug at the wires. Hey, she built this suit in a prison, so it can't be too sturdy, right? Right. The wires fizzle and pop as they come out of their sockets, and the tail gives a shudder and falls limp. Uh. Mission accomplished?

You hit the ground with a thud. She turns to look at you and keeps on turning, placing all four limbs on the ground and all-out chases you. The tail's wild flailing throws you off, and you barely manage to throw out a breeze to cushion your fall. You struggle to your feet, brushing dust and grit off your awesome leggings, and look back at Radiatia, who is still pursuing her tail, oblivious to your removal thereof. She turns in circles, getting farther and farther away from the entrance to the tunnel: exactly what you were looking for, if not how you initially planned.

This part's gonna be difficult, but you can do it; you're a superhero! You gather together all the little threads of breezes around you, then call down bigger ones from the sky. You reach out a gloved hand towards a squat VW bug parked just outside of the crime scene, and the winds obey your orders, swirling around. You grit your teeth and breathe out through your nose, willing the winds to wrap around it like a super-strong extension of your own hand. The car lurches and its windows rattle, but that's not nearly enough to get it off the ground.

You think physics. Gravity, friction, normal force, pushing up enough to negate the pull down, momentum, trajectory. The air inside of the car pushes against the roof as the larger breezes plus against the undercarriage. Metal buckles, one of the headlights blows out, and you manage to lift the car off the ground.

It hovers uncertainly a few feet in the air before you flex the wind like a mighty arm and fling it, end over end, in the direction of Radiatia and the entrance to the tunnel. It lands with an enormous crunch and a spray of gravel, lodged soundly end-up in the hole and looking like a modern art sculpture.

You hope they had insurance.

Radiatia halts her tail-chasing and, after quelling her dizziness, boggles at the car in the hole, then at you. You shrug, and the winds nudge a few more rocks into place, blocking the entrance entirely.

"What about those escape plans now, shitty space furry?" you taunt, cracking your knuckles satisfyingly. That felt good. You know you'll be tired later after all that exertion, but pushing your power to the limit like that always feels good somehow.

Radiatia growls—legitimately, honest-to-God _growls_ at you, and points her ray gun straight at your grinning face. You're ready for her this time, though; you pick up a good-sized rock and fling it straight, lodging it squarely in the gun's barrel. You've got pretty damn good aim. Maybe that's another superpower?

The gun fizzles and powers down, throwing off sparks. Radiatia looks at it questioningly, thumps it a few times. Then, predictably—it explodes.

You duck behind a nearby toppled tree to avoid getting pelted by shrapnel and debris. As the smoke clears, you peek out from behind your hiding place. The wail of sirens grows louder as you approach the blackened crater where Radiatia once stood. Other than the wreckage of the scene, there's no actual sign she was there: no smoldering robot parts of green-glowing hunks of uranium in sight. You'd like to think she was blown to smithereens, but you know better; she managed to escape. Again.

The police finally arrive, driving onto the once-pristine lawn. You shield your eyes from the blinding red and blue lights. Chief Regulator gets out of the nearest cop car and approaches you.

"You know," he says, surveying the area, "this is a public recreational space."

"I know," you sigh.

"Must be thousands of dollars' worth of fiscal damages."

"In my defense, it was... _mostly_ her."

He kneels to investigate the crater. "So did you...?"

"Nope," you say. "I had her down to the line, but she, um, got away at the last second. Sorry."

"Damn." He approaches the car end-up in the ground and raises an eyebrow at you. You shrug, looking guilty.

"So she dug her way outta prison, eh? Gotta have a word with 'em dipshits in charge, and then get this filled in for real." He turns back towards you. "I'm gonna let you off with a warning this time. Keep the collateral low in the future, got it?"

"Yes, sir," you say, fighting back thoughts of _see, this is why people become villains_ and _let's see how_ you _handle it_. He turns back to his car.

You get ready to take off when another thought hits you. "Chief Regulator?"

"Hm?"

"What did Timeslicer ask you for?"

"What's it to you?"

"Well, we're both heroes... if it's something that's important to the safety of New Prospit, I want to know!"

"If you're so buddy-buddy with Timeslicer, ask him yourself." He shuts the car door in your face.

You take off. Man, heroing is a thankless job sometimes.

~~~

Your name is JADE HARLEY, codename RADIATIA, and you are currently SIX INCHES TALL.

You possess a variety of INTERESTS, including SCIENCE and LAUGHING EVILLY, but as of right now your primary one is NOT GETTING STEPPED ON. Your Fusion-powered Ultrafortified Robot suit’s self-shrink ray works just fine, but predictably, you forgot to give it a REVERSE function. Not only that, but your prototype F.U.R. suit lacks ROCKET BOOSTERS, meaning you’ll have to walk all the way back to your EVIL LAIR.

Man, being a mad scientist genius sure sucks sometimes.

You scramble up a drainage pipe, your Extra-Traction Wolf Claws (tm) digging tiny punctures into the metal. It’s a little embarrassing—you are a _wolf_ , science damn it, not a squirrel! Geez!!

A shadow passes overhead. You squint upwards at the black-winged silhouette of a hawk. While you have a great love for all fauna, big or small, you could probably make an exception for birds or prey in this case. It spies you and begins its descent, circling lower and lower.

You raise your ray gun, preparing to serve up a sizzling hot course of pain straight into its ugly hooked beak. Too late you remember that your gun is a blackened husk of scrap metal after what Blue Streak did. The hawk turns tighter and tighter circles before pulling into a dive.

Fuck!!!


	3. Episode 03

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episode 03: The Black Grimoire! When a mysterious and sinister force strikes out of the blue and threatens to consume the city, Blue Streak springs into action to save the day! But can he handle the challenge alone? What about his schoolwork? And why can't he stop thinking about Dave?

The refrigerator door slides open with a pressurized hiss. Cold air raises goosebumps on your arms as you reach inside, take your sample tray and close the door behind you. Balancing it gingerly, taking care not to tilt or spill your precious samples of genetically-engineered slime mold, you carry it back to your lab bench.   
  
You pop a slide out of the tray, use an eyedropper to add a tiny amount of acid solution, and squint at it under the microscope. The bacteria do an intricate dance, so simple in their stimulus-response and yet so complex. You’d think that the mundanity of lab work wouldn’t hold a candle to the excitement of hero work, but that’s not the case. This is  real science; nothing like the bullshit Radiatia spouts. It’s so easy to get lost in the scratching of pencil on paper, the gentle rhythm of making observations and writing them down in your notebook, the sound of pages turning as you flip through the books to cross-reference one particular chemical reaction—   
  
Your hero alert goes off. Son of a bitch!   
  
Ordinarily, it would take you around half an hour to put everything away safely and securely, but you haven’t got any time for that. You go to your professor, all apologies and puppy eyes, telling her you’ve got a family emergency but you don’t want to compromise your experiment, so can she please find someone to put it all away safely? You ditch before she can remember that you haven’t  got any family.   
  
~~~   
  
You hope nobody notices that you always fly from the university! Your secret identity is the one thing in your life that you refuse to sacrifice. You’ve got friends here, and classes and a life-- though, you mentally add, no girlfriend yet-- and you can’t fathom how much of that would change if they knew who you really are! ...Well, maybe your professors would understand why you skip class so often, but on the other hand, you’d probably get more fanmail than you could handle.   
  
You think back wistfully to last year’s independence day parade, where you did a flyover and shook Mayor Vagabond’s hand. You still have the key to the city buried somewhere in your room; disappointingly, it doesn’t unlock anything.   
  
More practically, if villains knew your identity, they could track you down. No way in hell are you letting that happen!   
  
You hover high above New Prospit. A twitch of a finger calls warm breezes from down below, carrying with them the sounds and voices of the city: honking horns, barking dogs, shouting arguments, friendly conversation. You discard the useless ones and listen for the screaming.   
  
Finally, you pull up a promising one, but it’s a little worrying. Rather than the sound of screams-- or the sound of  anything \-- it’s eerily quiet. When you wrap it around your ears and listen closely, you can just barely make out a quiet, goopy squelching, or maybe slithering.   
  
Not a good sign.   
  
You tug on the thread of breeze, and it reels you in like a fishing line. It leads you downtown into the artsy district. You’d never come here willingly; spending all day wandering around an art gallery until your feet hurt and staring at meaningless paintings seems like your own personal hell. For whatever reason, you think of Dave and his occasionally pretentious hipster style. Doesn’t he do photography? He might have mentioned something like that yesterday. Maybe he’d like this sort of thing.   
  
Whatever! Thoughts of dave begone, there is crime to fight!   
  
The street your breeze leads you to is totally black. Yeah.  Definitely not a good sign. You hover a safe distance away and adjust your mask to get a clearer view. The cars, road, and building walls are coated in what looks like black gelatin, gently pulsating like a beating heart. In the more transparent places you can make out the silhouettes of people, frozen in place by the stuff. You swallow back a wave of nausea. (You never did like jello.)   
  
Further down the street stands an unfortunately familiar figure, facing away from you. Wrapped in black twisted cloth, with ashen skin and pure white hair, she would probably be more imposing if she wasn’t five foot one. Her eyes shine out, pure white pinpricks in the darkness. In her hands is a massive tome, glowing with malevolent black light. She stands hunched over, feet levitating a few inches off the ground, and reads from it. Her tongue performs inhuman feats of pronunciation and her intonation sends icy shivers down your spine.   
  
“Lxxae ydd fwth ylli ferly’thu utg vs’irew rath’eth ylkrid,” she declares, and the black goo surrounding her solidifies itself into coiling tendrils, which lash out to strike at another figure, further down the street.   
  
Oh. So you  didn’t get here first.   
  
Timeslicer leaps back away from the attack, brandishing a katana in each hand. He scythes them in front of him so quickly they become mere flashes of light. They slice through the gelatinous tentacles like butter; as quickly as he can cut them away, more form in their place, lashing at his ankles and arms and attempting to pull him under.   
  
You smile to yourself a little as you pull into a dive. Whose turn is it to be the hero  now ? As far as you can tell, Lady Grimdark (the name that the press have elected to call her, since her real villain name has too many consonants to pronounce) hasn’t noticed you yet, so you have the element of surprise. You carve a wide turn, circling all the way behind yer and twisting the wind into a drill underneath you. Timeslicer looks up; the Lady pauses in her chanting and turns, eyes wide.   
  
You hurtle downwards, connecting feet-first. She goes flying and lands in a black pool meters away with a squelch of gelatin. You pose victoriously for a few seconds before you realize that Timeslicer is trying to say something.   
  
“The book!” he says in his robotically disguised voice, pointing with one hand while using the other to beat back the tentacles that increasingly surge forward. Now, without their master to command them, they seem to take longer to re-form once he slices them into pieces.   
  
“Okay!” You start towards where the tome lies, or rather floats suspended a foot off the ground, its pages rustling menacingly. The tentacles avoid the area around it, leaving a patch of bizarrely clean cement underneath. As you take a step, several more tentacles rise out of the ground to wrap around your feet. You pitch forward, and they try to grab your wrists too but you wrench yourself out of their grasp and struggle on. Lady Grimdark shifts where she lies. Her head turns to look up at you and as soon as her glowing eyes contact yours, a bolt of pain like a migraine sears through your skull and you look away immediately. The tendrils help her to her feet, goo evaporating off her black dress without leaving a trace, and she starts towards the book as well.   
  
“Fyr’ath hddu hr’guk,” she intones, then says in more understandable English, “Interfere not with the summoning of the Old One, human.”   
  
“Hey, uh, no offense or anything, but you’re mostly human too,” you say, pulling against your bonds with increasing futility. You watch in horror as she draws nearer and nearer to the book, hand outstretched.   
  
“Hey, dipshit!” calls Timeslicer from behind you. “You have superpowers! Use them!”   
  
“Oh! Right!” You summon a gust of wind to tear your restraints to shreds, then another to pick up the book where it floats and lift it to you. Lady Grimdark gives a wordless cry of anger as it sails out of her reach; you jump and catch it deftly, marveling at how the ooze recoils in fear beneath you. Resisting against an unbelievable force, you slam the book shut with a resounding crash.   
  
The effect is immediate. The goo covering the buildings, street, and cars starts to bubble and boil, then recede. Tendrils bat feebly at your ankles as they get sucked back like water down a drain. It all pours into an open manhole, and when the last drop trickles down, the metal cover grinds over it with a satisfying clank.   
  
“Gosh,” you say. “That can’t be good for the plumbing.”   
  
“Yrff wldath rgell! Give me the book!” screeches the Lady. “You  dare to trifle with the will of the ancients?! My words will rend the skin from your body and make your blood boil in your veins. My tentacles will--”   
  
She freezes mid-sentence. Timeslicer steps up next to you, spinning his turntables.   
  
“She was getting a little long-winded,” he says. You nod and tuck the book under one arm.   
  
“Hey, thanks for the help out there. Couldn’t have done it without you.”   
  
“Uh. Yeah. Turns out this eldritch stuff messes with my timetables. So, uh. Yeah. You too. Really saved my ass, showing up when you did.”   
  
“No problem!” You wipe some of the black sludge off your suit. Man, this is gonna be a bitch to clean. “Hey, so, uh...”   
  
“Yeah?”   
  
“Well, evil to thwart, justice to deliver and all that... what I’m saying is, why do we have to compete all of the time?”   
  
“Beats me,” he says with a shrug.   
  
“So, uh...” you extend a gloved hand. “Partners?”   
  
“Sure,” he says, and shakes it. The wail of sirens alerts you to the police’s presence. You’re still fairly bitter over yesterday, and not wanting him to chew you out again for damages that were legitimately not your fault, you take to the air again. The innocents who had been trapped in the goo start to awaken and stir-- good, not dead then, that’s another one of your worries gone. Timeslicer gives you a short wave and you sail away feeling significantly happier about your work than you did yesterday.   
  
~~~   
  
The grimdark tome is huge and awkward to fly with. You adjust it into a more secure position in your arms-- don’t want to drop it from way up here, you could kill a man-- and feel uncomfortable as it doubtlessly pulses with grimmedarque enyrrgyyies and you’re afraid it will try to tentacle you. Again. So you’ve got to destroy it. How? That’s another problem entirely. You could drop it in the middle of a lake, but you’re afraid of the damage it might deal to the wildlife and, at any rate, there’s a risk it might wash up where someone might find it again. You’ll try shredding it.   
  
Back at your dorm, shredding proves ineffective as well. The pages are difficult to rip out, like tough leather, and no matter how many you do manage to remove, it never seems to have any fewer pages than it did before. You successfully blunt several pairs of scissors and your good pocketknife in attempts to rip it. Your lighter proves ineffective as well; the only mark it leaves is a tiny amount of soot, which you easily wipe away. When you take it to one of the pages you ripped out, the paper doesn’t light but disintegrates into gross black sludge which stings when you touch it. You even contemplate texting Dave about it, because you’re sure he’d have some creative ideas of how to dispose of a book, but you’re afraid he’d get curious or try and come over and help, and you absolutely cannot have that. By the end of the session your dorm room is a total mess and almost on fire but the book remains stubbornly intact. You feel like it’s glowering at you.   
  
In the end, you just shove it behind your other textbooks on your bookshelf and call it a day.   
  
** EB: so.   
EB: timeslicer.   
AG: That douche8ag?   
EB: yeah.   
EB: not that bad of a guy. **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Screw formatting pesterlogs.
> 
> Now that all four kids have been properly introduced, I'll have reference pictures for you all in the next chapter!


End file.
